The Texas State Climatologist on Climate Change

You may have noticed a recent AP story (picked up by USA Today here) on my announcement that Texas temperatures were rising and that triple-digit temperatures would be the norm within a few decades, as the story put it. I’d like to provide a little context about the story itself and about future Texas climate.

First, here is some helpful context that I received by email from an anonymous email account, here quoted in full with a tiny bit of character substitution: “hey you pathetic lying scumbag everybody is laughing at you and the al gore scam. what a stupid poiece of scum you are. professer mt a**. try dumba** al gore a** kisser.”

Maybe you’d like some different context? Good.

First off, the story was triggered by a Texas A&M University news release. I appear to be one of A&M’s favorite subjects, since lots of people are interested in the weather and most of my research is on weather and climate with practical applications. This time around, they noticed that I’d been saying that temperatures are going up in Texas and thought it would make a good news story that might get some attention. They were right.

The funny thing is, I’ve been saying this for some time. But the time scale of climate change is so slow, it takes a lot of repetition and a good bit of real warming before it finally crosses some threshold and becomes a useful bit of information for the 24-hour news cycle. I suppose it also helps that it’s fall now, and extreme, headline-grabbing weather tends to happen in the summer or winter.

In this case, the prediction emerges from an analysis included in a chapter I wrote back in May 2008 for a book called The Impact of Global Warming on Texas. I don’t advise you to run out immediately and buy the book, mainly because it still hasn’t been published. I’m not familiar with the ins and outs of academic publishing, but it seems to be taking a long time. The original hope was that it would be published in spring 2009, but the latest estimate is June 2011. Fortunately, each of the chapters has been posted online by the Texas Climate Initiative.

Meanwhile, 2009 was a very hot summer for southern Texas, and 2010 was a very hot summer for northern Texas. I found it useful to compare the observed temperatures during exceptionally hot summers with the climate projections of rising temperatures. I did so in my earlier blog, Atmo.Sphere for the 2009 summer temperatures, showing that what was an exceptionally hot summer in 2009 was projected to be an ordinary summer in 2050.

I figure that people are perfectly capable of understanding in their brains what an increase of 2-5.5 degrees F means, but the past two summers have provided a visceral sense of what such an increase would mean. If you didn’t like the last two summers, you won’t like global warming, at least not during the summertime.

Click to enlarge. Shown are historical temperatures across Texas, climate projections for the future, and (in red) selected summer-mean temperatures from 2009.

Here’s that context: around the middle of the century, greenhouse gases will have driven Texas temperatures upward a minimum of 2 degrees F, with 3-4 F being most likely and 5.5 F not being outside the realm of possibility. When considered on a decadal time scale, Texas temperatures are already at or near historic highs, and the upward trend over the past 30 years is similar to the projected future trend. There’s not much difference between the temperature increase in winter and summer, so it seems that most places with daily summer highs in the upper 90s will have to get used to daily summer highs in the triple digits. Likewise, while an exceptionally warm day would presently be around 110 F, in forty years it will be closer to 115 F.

Now to put the source of information in context. These are only projections, and they come from imperfect models driven by only a single climate change agent. However, even if we didn’t have models at all, our understanding of climate sensitivity would still give us about the same projected temperature increase. And while only a single climate change agent is used, it is probably the climate change agent whose effect can be most accurately projected.

I bet you don’t get that impression from news coverage, but it’s true: of all the things that can have a significant impact on global climate in 40 years, the increasing greenhouse gases and their future effect on climate is probably the most accurately known of all.

Just think of some of the others. Solar output: nobody has demonstrated sufficient understanding of solar physics to produce plausible forecasts of solar output 40 years hence. Even the phase of the 11-year sunspot cycle is impossible to predict, as the recent extended minimum makes clear. Solar activity is up long-term from the Little Ice Age, but nobody knows whether it will keep going up or start going down. Volcanoes: impossible to predict, unless we suddenly enter an epoch of massive eruptions and lava flows over some crustal hot spot. Aerosols: probably fewer in 2050, but we don’t even know whether the resulting net warming sill be positive or negative. Natural cycles: Yeah, good luck. Maybe we’ll have that ability in ten years, but not now.

Compared to the other climate drivers, greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide are easy. That means that the projection of 2-5.5 F warming by the middle of the century should be regarded as a baseline projection. The models may be overestimating the warming a bit, or underestimating it a bit. Other climate factors could bump the temperature upward or downward, possibly by a considerable amount; we just don’t know.

We also just don’t know the effect of global warming on rainfall in Texas. Even if rainfall stays stable, though, the increased evaporation and water demand will stretch water resources to an extent only exceeded by population growth.

We can hope that the models and the paleoclimate evidence are both wrong, or that something else will come along like a massive sequence of volcanic eruptions to keep temperatures close to their present-day values. But at this point it seems foolish to bet against temperatures at least 2-3 F warmer than typical 1981-2000 conditions, and irresponsible not to plan for the possibility that the locked-in warming due to greenhouse gas increases will come to pass.

“But at this point it seems foolish to bet against temperatures at least 2-3 F warmer than typical 1981-2000 conditions, and irresponsible not to plan for the possibility that the locked-in warming due to greenhouse gas increases will come to pass.”

So true! Suggest readers may also want to check out this link to get more on the subject and what we can/should be doing about it.

But at this point it seems foolish to bet against temperatures at least 2-3 F warmer than typical 1981-2000 conditions, and irresponsible not to plan for the possibility that the locked-in warming due to greenhouse gas increases will come to pass.

There’s the rub, now isn’t it? Someone should forward this blog entry to the Texas Water Development Board.

Global Warming cannot even be uttered without it being politicized. That’s a shame.

However – when a species with as much potential as our own comes around – one would never have thought it would be THIS species that bring down the entire tent!

How many trees have we decimated in the last 20 years? Ever check out the rainforests from orbit? Naturally, when we lose our greatest natural defense – we will find anomolies….I wish so badly to see the Lorax again – why not plant some trees? Truffula!

How many 100 days did Houston have this year? Before you accept this lock, stock, and barrel…see if we have any next yest. It seem a lot of times they only talk about heat index but we do not have 100 degree days….maybe one or two a year….

I feel sorry for you sometimes having to write these stories for such a limited market. Many Texans I know don’t even believe in science, much less Climate Change. Heck, they don’t even believe in “atoms” and “molecules”. It’s a bit difficult to spoon feed these folks the subtleties of climate change and evidence, etc. They’re not going to “get it” until the sun burns the top of their head – through their hats. But keep up the good work all the same. Some of us are reading and listening, and appreciate your fine efforts.

Kind of makes you wonder why so many sheep are in denial. If they all owned stock in Exxon then there could be a reason but most of the ones I know just are happy to repeat what Rush or some other corporate flack says with out any evidence to the contrary. I hope they all keep a diary so their grandchildren and great grandchildren can be proud how they fought science back in the day.

Interesting about the hate mail you receive. Typical dittoheads who like to shout you down because they have nothing substantive to add to the conversation. I don’t know what their issue is with science as a subject as a whole.

So all this fear of climate change is being based on 20-30 years of accurately recorded data? How do we know this isn’t a thousand year cycle? We don’t. I think climate change is a complete hoax and just like alot of other scientific theories out there, if you can get government grant money to study it then science will go for it and study it. I bet you give a big grant to a university, they will prove that the moon will crash into the earth in a million years.

When I moved back to Houston in the late 70′s, I remember a summer that we had what seemed like weeks with temps over 100. That is a very rare thing now. Nope, I’m thinking we are entering a period where we are going to see cooler weather…which I believe is why you almost never hear the words “global warming” anymore…it’s all about “climate change” now.

Amazing that oil companies were able to create this belief that Global Warming is not a threat. Just shows how easily ignorant people can be manipulated. There is no reason that this issue should be politicized. Well, on reason. MONEY.

There’s a wonderful video presentation of an interview with Dick Alley at Penn State in which he describes not only his own research (focused on ice cores) but also the process of modeling climate over time, the uncertainties, and the reasons to pay attention to what they tell us.

Science is supposed to produce irrefutable evidence and conclusions, not a projection. Projections are the dismal science, economics. This only takes into account one factor (greenhouse gases) that we can reasonably predict (if things remain constant), but we aren’t even close to the largest producer of carbon in the air.

I am a staunch conservative, that also recycles and doesn’t run his air conditioner all day. Heck, I even drive a car that averages around 23 mpg. I still don’t believe in global warming based off just greenhouse gases. I do all of this because conservation makes good sense, conservation would make good sense even if an ice age was coming.

When so many factors are in play, it’s like trying to say that the Texans fault for losing is square on the shoulders of Kareem Jackson. The problem with this research is that its driving people to want to control others for their own personal gain, not to actually help people.

Putting more carbon dixoide in the air is never good but plants do you use it to produce oxygen. Trees produce alot of ozone, should we cut them down? How does having large swaths of concrete jungles affect the temperature in a city? Will increased heat actually cause more water vapor in the atmopshere and therefore more rain fall, perhaps negating possible water shortages. I have a problem considering something as unequivocal truth based off one factor when so many others are in play.

So what you are basically telling me is we have no real idea what is going to happen in the future? But we should be prepared for any number of warmth-inducing scenarios, because , well, you never know? I got news for people, if crazy sunspot activity occurs, a comet or space debris plows into our planet, every volcano erupts at once, or every women in LA uses there AquaNet at the same moment, there is nothing we can do to prepare, curtail, or avoid it. Unless you have some deity on speed dial.

You personal recollections versus recorded data? Hmmmm. i think I will go with the recorded data. btw, climate change is the euphemism assigned created by the right wing media to satisfy doubters like yourself.

Hunter – The local projections of temperature are similar to what one would expect from the global temperature changes, allowing for latitudinal and land-sea differences. A large departure from that would have required more extensive diagnosis.

The assertion that ‘global climate disruption’ is the official name is a skeptic-blog meme. Dr. Holdren has advocated that term for years, and nothing has changed either with his advocacy or with the official government vocabulary.

I don’t think we will see more than 1-2F warming across the rural areas of Texas in the next 50 years from GW. However, the more urbanized areas will continue to grow, and they will warmer (4-5F from both urbanization and GW).

So Houston highs and lows in the next 50 years may average 98/78 in the summer with many lows greater than 80F. Time to move the weather station at IAH to a little cooler spot!